


get the hell out of gotham (and for gods sake, please take me with you)

by dispatch



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-16 02:21:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2252247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dispatch/pseuds/dispatch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You left it right there on the computer for all to see and I-“</p>
<p>“Under four levels of encryption that you had to break.” Tim feels the need to interject. Damian waves him silent.</p>
<p>“-For all to see! And I figured you would need assistance.”</p>
<p>(or, Batman is out of town. Here’s some snapshots of what Tim gets up to with the other bat children)</p>
            </blockquote>





	get the hell out of gotham (and for gods sake, please take me with you)

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the DCU FicHunt 2014 over on tumblr and was written for kestral. I started off thinking this would be a DamiTim since it looks like that was what kestral would like, and it turned out this was going to be more gen and everyone getting face time. (but the DamiTim is there! if you squint and your screen is turned off) Edited: I somehow didn't paste the first paragraph in this. Now fixed.

For various reasons and one rather ill-timed planetary emergency, there is no Batman in Gotham for three weeks. Word starts to get around. Things get complicated.  
(that is an understatement)  
*

Dick is in Mombasa. The only thing Tim really knows about Mombasa is the tea Dick keeps sending him. It’s chai. Tim isn’t really a chai fan.

“Thanks for the tea. It will make a great compost.” Tim tells him over vid call.

“Awwww.” Dick frowns. But it’s more grin then anything. “Don’t be like that, little brother. What will Alfred say?”

“That chai isn’t a real tea?” Tim offered, wincing; weak, really weak argument. Dick’s grin turns a little mocking. “Just- don’t send me any more tea. Five pounds is enough. For a life time. Really. I don’t need any more tea. Tea isn’t really a great souvenir either.”

“Alright,” Dick says.

“I mean, I get tha- Wait. What?”

“I won’t send you anymore tea,” Dick is still smiling. Why is he smiling?

“Ah- right. Well, that’s good?” Tim wonders why he’s asking. Except, suddenly he’s nervous. Inexplicably nervous. “Yes. That’s great.” He fumbles with the mouse. “I’ve got to go.” He ends the call, wilts across his desk. Doesn’t bother to move the keyboard. The computer making angry beeping noises at him as the keys lock.

*

“Drake!” Tim switched to the news stream on his tablet, feet still propped on the coffee table. Damian charged into the living room. “Why did Father leave you in charge of the systems?”

“Why wouldn’t he leave me in charge?” Tim didn’t really ask. It was rhetoric. Damian will figure that out some day.

“Clearly, Father has lost his senses.” Damian snarled. Tim scowled absently at his coffee, it had long since gone cold. When he looked up Damian was staring at him like he could catch fire any second now.

“Do you actually need anything?” Tim, again, didn’t really ask. Damian bristled before turning and stomping back out the room.

“I will be taking the batmobile! Since you obviously won’t be needing it.” Damian shouted.

“You do that, Damian,” Tim called out, closing the news feed and pulling back up Angry Birds.

*

“I think I pissed off the Russian mob.” Steph says one night. Tim is sitting against the wall, phone wedged against his shoulder, watching the spin cycle on the washer. The rise and twist of the clothes is hypnotic. It’s not helping his desire for a nap.

“What’d you do?” Tim sighs.

“There a small – tiny! Really! – chance that someone may have put a hit out for me. Ha. Ha ha. Yeah.”

“-What?” And suddenly he’s awake.

“I’’ve been busy?” She offers. There’s a banging noise like the backfire of an engine and Steph yelps, “Oh, shit. Gotta go!”

Four hours later he gets a text message.

_I took care of it._

A few seconds later he gets another one.

_I’m starving. Want to meet up for gyros?_

*

In the second week, the weather decides it’s time to dump the whole ocean on them. Tim crawls through his window in the dark of pre-dawn and promptly falls over his lamp. He normally doesn’t have this problem getting into his own home; except he kind of isn’t looking where he’s going as he blearily stares at the figure on his couch. Cass is curled up in a ball, asleep; wearing an oversized t-shirt and sweatpants (they are his), with a wet miserable looking cat (not his) against her side. Her suit still dripping, rain heavy, were it hangs over the laundry line he had set up in the corner.

He drags himself into the bathroom and gets out of his own wet (he thinks it will never be dry again) suit. Feels kind of like a zombie as he stumbles back out. Grabs a blanket from the closet, fumbles with it as he unfolds it and tosses it over both Cass and cat.

Calls out, “Night,” as he heads to his room.

There’s a mumbled, “Night, Tim,” as he closes the door.

*

“You left it right there on the computer for all to see and I-“

“Under four levels of encryption that you had to break,” Tim feels the need to interject. Damian, armed to the teeth, had tracked him down to the sewers as he followed a lead on a drug run. Damian waves him silent.

“-For all to see! And I figured you would need assistance.”

“Right. That is actually kind of nice of-“

“- Since with your obvious failings you will never be able to get anything done.”

“You’re a little shithead, you know that?” Tim says fondly.

*

There’s a FedEx crate at his door when he gets home. There are, in side, a dozen little – kind of pretty, really - bottles filled with sand and sea shells. About five pounds of it from the look of it. The return address says Mombasa. A post card shoved behind the label has a picture of Dick sitting on the beach taped to it. SOUVINERS written down the side in sharpie.

So… Tim stares at the bottles. Mombasa has a lot of sand, apparently.

“I’m going to make the master bathroom into a beach,” Tim tells Dick later. “Alfred will probably be disappointed. But I have all this sand that came out of nowhere and I need to do something with it, obviously.”

“That’s the spirit,” Dick cheers.

*

Tim notices Steph is bleeding only when he clings to her sides when they dip into a sharp turn. They are riding double on her bike; Tim’s own bike having exploded in a really unfortunate accident not five minutes before.

“I can handle it,” Steph yells when he brings it up. Tim nods, even though she can’t see. A bullet dings against the bike handle, scrapping off the paint. Steph swears; they swerve around a truck.

“I thought you said you took care of the hit order?” He feels the need to ask when they cross the bridge. An angry civilian honks at them, not seeming to care that they have four insane assassins on their tail.

“I did!” Steph laughs now. “This is a new one.”

*

Week three, unexpected and really enthusiastic help shows up. Tim isn’t sure he wants it.

There was an explosion in an abandoned apartment building. Tim glances through the reports, then closes the file and shoves it back to the imagined pile of shit going to hell. A mysteriously empty (mostly) apartment that may have been a site of human trafficking. The only people (somehow) left in the building were the criminals who ran it.

It screams Jason. Everything about it is a loud, enthusiastic signature that has Jason written all over it. Did Jason somehow have a ‘no Batman’ radar? It pings him every time he can blow shit up and not get chased off? Tim hides his head in his arms and groans.

*

When Tim steps out of the shower, he is vaguely surprised Cass has taken over his apartment. She sits cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch, a movie menu looping as she pets the cat (where does it come from?) Cass doesn’t look at him when he walks past her and into the kitchen.

Still isn’t looking at him when he falls over the back of the couch several minutes later. Hands her the bowl of popcorn and asks, “What are we watching?”

She finally turns toward him and smiles, “Pride and Prejudice.”

“Oh, yeah. Austen,” Tim nods and fist pumps the air. “Let’s rock this.”

*

“-and so I’ve covered everything with Bat stickers,” Tim enthuses, spinning the chair around as he gestures enthusiastically at the computer.

“No Robin stickers?” Dick asks around a mouthful of what looks like eggs. Maybe. He doesn’t want to ask what Dick finds as breakfast that’s not cereal.

“They ran out,” Tim lies. “I did throw in a few Superman stickers though! I’m sure B will love it.”

*

“We have got to stop meeting like this!” Steph smiles winningly as they hang over the pit. Kicking their legs out at the top of each swing.

“What can I say?” Tim grins back. He feels a little giddy. It’s probably the loss of blood flow from the chain wrapped around them both. “You’ve got me all tied up.” She snickers. As they swing up the chain slips over the hook and they drop.

“Ow, ow, ow,” Steph wheezes, winded. Tim wiggles his arm against the chain that’s now a good deal looser without them hanging from it. “I hate the mafia. I hate it.”

*

“I suppose you aren’t as complete a failure as I had originally thought,” Damian grouses. Doesn’t even look at him as he keeps working on the report.

“And I suppose you aren’t as much of a brat as I thought,” Tim concedes. Damian sniffs rather pointedly. Tim stares at a map taped to the cork board. Little thumb tacks seemingly randomly pressed in across the paper. It looks kind of like a smiley face. “Hey, do you think this looks like a smiley face?“

“Shut up, Drake.”

“I’ll take that as a no then.”

*

Bruce and Dick arrive back in Gotham within minutes of each other. Dick stands by the display case, smirking at Tim’s artistic bat related handiwork (Bruce didn’t even acknowledge it except one really long pause) while Bruce makes himself better acquainted with the latest files.

“How’d it go?” Bruce smiles at him. Relieved to be home and proud of his kids. Tim can see it.

Tim grins a bit stupidly, “Fantastic. You may want to find Jason though. He’s been a little gun happy. Pew, pew. Explosions. You know the deal."


End file.
